Israel, even if your people were as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction has been decreed; justice overflows.
Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, the holy seed is the stump.
and will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea.
He will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple , until the decreed destruction
because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’
Then I said, ‘Until when, Lord? ’ And he replied: Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate,
You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of the whole earth do what is just? ’
Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And in the place where they were told: You are not my people, they will be called: Sons of the living God.
Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand, and the offspring of your body like its grains; their name would not be cut off or eliminated from my presence.
The Lord says this: ‘As the new wine is found in a bunch of grapes, and one says, “Don’t destroy it, for there’s some good in it,” so I will act because of my servants and not destroy them all.
‘ “Return, you faithless children #– #this is the Lord’s declaration #– #for I am your master, , and I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.
Those who escape the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah only few in number, and the whole remnant of Judah, the ones going to the land of Egypt to stay there for a while, will know whose word stands, mine or theirs!